in between burgers and breaths. I have a feeling Brian Kelly is pretty much the same coach. No defense, pass all day offense. I wish we had some experience at the back end about now, but maybe the freshness in their new system will make things extra hard for them. What if they lose big to Purdue to start the year?

1. The Rivals article is kind of silly in that it tries to extrapolate pop-psych explanations for why certain positions are represented. It just sounds like they are reaching. The fact is if you have the innate talent and desire to become a head coach, it doesn't matter what position you are playing - as long as you got good coaching, you will use that experience to get ahead in coaching any way you can.

2. That being said, it is no surprise QBs are well-represented. Being a college quarterback exposes one to lots of demands and details most of the players don't see, like game-planning, overt leadership, calling some plays during the game, a personal relationship with the head coach. Not to mention you have to be smart and organized and charismatic, traits that head coaches need.

3. There seems to be an idea going around that it's unnatural to coach a position group you haven't played, and I just don't but that. Any coach with 5-10 years of experience should have picked up most of the basics of coaching any position, and know someone who can give them more detail in a phone call or chat. To say nothing of the fact that in my estimation, lots of alleged position coaches are really there for other reasons - contribution to gameplanning or recruiting, sheer coaching ability regardless of position, or a guy the other coaches like having around or a favorite of the HC. Let's be honest, running position drills for any group is not THAT complicated that it requires a lifetime of expertise from the days you were in a uniform.

4. If you'll indulge me, it pisses me off to hear the NFL talking heads joke as if offensive linemen are big, dumb fat guys slapping around while the real football players play on the perimeter. in my personal, GENERAL experience, the sharpest groups of players have been offensive linemen and quarterbacks. QBs I've already talked about; linemen need an intelligence about the nuances of their position, the ability to work as a member of the line sub-team and a pride in unit cohestion, an acceptance of the drudgery you'll need to do as an assistant, tolerance for lack of personal recognition and a flake-free personality. ALL of which are all but mandatory for a head coach.

I think I am underrating DBs because I'm not around a lot of good ones - in high school and youth ball where I have spent much of my time around players, a guy good enough to be an effective defensive back is too valuable to blow in coverage when he could be up closer involved in every play. (Also why a lot of college corners play safety in high school, e.g. Sir Charles).

5. It's my belief that being a good player and then becoming a coach is only useful for interesting sportswriting features. The ability to play and to coach are two completely different things, connected only in that you have been exposed to the level of play so you can speak intelligently about it. Being a great player is really gravy or put another way irrelevant. Again people will come in with the pop-psych and say coaches are compensating, driven by a pervasive feeling of failure because they never won state/a bowl/the super bowl.

A lot of very promising coaches are not anything special on the field and it just really doesn't matter. In fact, getting bounced out of play early in your career is a good way to get moving on the coaching track, and guys who play a long time have catching up to do that takes time - e.g. Mike Singletary. And if you need to get a GA or position coaching gig, and you'er 30 and you've got a wife and kids and a mortgage, you might think twice about getting into coaching at all and suffering that privation of time and money.

5(b). When Mike Price got fired by Alabama, they chose his replacement from between former Tide QB Mike Shula and former Tide C Sylvester Croom. While race was brought up, and I won't comment on it, and the Shula family name meant something, I believe the dealbreaker was that Shula was a more visible personality in the Alabama canon than Croom. QBs are "cooler" than linemen.

I think they made a mistake. In any event, Shula flamed out and was fired. Croom did an admirable, if not successful, job at Mississippi State, a real backwater with none of the institutional advantages of Alabama.

6. More college coaches worked with offense when they played than defense. Theory: offense sells tickets, so getting a marketable offensive mind is better for the marketing aspect of the program than getting a top-flight DC to be your head coach. The first thing fans will look for improvement is more points on the board.

Tressel only gets away with it because he wins. When John Cooper's offense stunk out the joint for two years running, even though they had been decent on defense, they canned him. (I had forgotten how limited Steve Bellisari was as a quarterback.)